Herbs, perennial, erect or ascending. Rootstock short or long, with one or few sterile rosette leaves at apex; petiolar bases small or very large and fleshy. Stems 1 to several, leafy and often branched. Pedicel slender, arcuately spreading to recurved in fruit. Flowers usually purple, rarely blue or yellow. Lower petal with long narrow claw; nectary 1/4-1/2 as long as spur. Stigma rounded to square, with 6, 8, or 10 simple marginal papillae, and geminate papillae lateral (submarginal) and on basal lobes. Capsule (except in Corydalis kiukiangensis, which might be better placed in C. sect. Priapos) oblong to linear, many seeded, not forming a sharp angle to pedicel, not explosively dehiscent.